The Baltimore Development Corp., the quasi-public agency that has shepherded countless major building projects in Baltimore to completion, has certainly done its share of good over the years in helping to revitalize the city.
But the progress the agency has made also has come at a cost: The BDC operates under a shadowy set of rules that, even agency alums acknowledge, are rarely codified and instead are more or less handed down from generation to generation in a kind of municipal oral tradition. That's no way to run a railroad.
Records of transactions are sketchy and in some cases nonexistent. And the sweeping authority the BDC enjoys to oversee major construction projects rests on an ill-defined legal foundation that, while allowing the agency to cut through red tape and move projects forward quickly, also has made it something of a law unto itself.
As The Sun's Annie Linskey reported Monday, no city or state statutes formally established the BDC, nor are its powers and responsibilities clearly delineated in a publicly available charter or codified in municipal laws governing its activities.
Moreover, the legal documents establishing what the agency can and can't do have in some instances been photocopied so many times that some words in the original can no longer even be read and have had to be inked in by hand. Amazingly, it appears that for such an influential adjunct of city government, the BDC has operated all these years in what amounts to a kind of legal limbo.
The recent flap over the BDC's awarding of some $2.3 million in demolition contracts without going through the city's competitive bidding process highlights the problem. Not only is it unclear whether the BDC's own rules required it to post public notice for such work, it's not even altogether clear why an agency that's supposed to be primarily an adviser to the mayor and City Council on development matters ended up awarding demolition contracts in the first place.
The BDC evolved out of earlier city agencies that had their genesis in the late 1960s and that reflected the "do it now" approach to urban redevelopment of former Baltimore mayor William Donald Schaefer. That was an era in which the city's economy was being pummeled by deindustrialization and civic leaders were racing to devise alternatives. The idea was to streamline the process through which major projects were initiated and approved to encourage private developers to partner with the city on job creation and economic revitalization.
Those are still worthy goals, and the BDC may still be the city's best instrument for achieving them. But the agency needs to be reconstituted on a firmer legal footing to ensure against potential abuses. It needs a clear charter that is available to the public and that unambiguously spells out its powers and responsibilities under the law. No other quasi-public body in the city plays such an important role in civic life, and no other acts under such fuzzy legal authority. It's time to bring the BDC and its operations into line with those of other city agencies. That will not only ensure the continuance of its mission of urban redevelopment but will also help avoid the kind of missteps evident in the recent flap over the agency's questionable involvement in the demolition business.
